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Pictures from
Tumbling Through Time
Seducing Mr. Darcy
Flirting with Forever
Don Campiti's on Potomac Avenue in Dormont. A Pittsburgh tradition. No air-conditioning, all cash, no delivery and the best
pepperoni pizza in the United States. I have fond memories of driving with my mother
to pick up pizza there as a kid and riding back feeling the near-burning heat of the pizza as it
rested on my lap. Still a regular stop for my family.
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This is the mural in Campiti's Seph mentions. Fascinated me since I was a kid. Note the full moon above the Rialto bridge. : )
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The Nine West store in the Pittsburgh Airport. Where it all began--the story and the inspiration for the story.
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My first view of Venice, 2002. Taken from the ad hoc water taxi we had to hire as the vaporetti were on strike. You can see the famous lion, the symbol of Venice, atop the column. Tom and Seph sit at the base during one of their talks.
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My son and I and about a gazillion pigeons in the Piazza San Marco. As I was digging through our Venice pictures, I realized we
already had a picture of the Museo Correr (the building with the Jackson Pollock sign behind us.) Despite having once stood in
front of it, I didn't even know the Museo Correr existed until I reached the point in Tumbling Through Time when
I needed Seph and Tom to talk with a maritime historian. I googled "Venice maritime history" only to discover there was a museum
renown for maritime history among other things right in St. Mark's Square. Not that I had noticed while we were there, of course.
Life works like that sometimes when you're writing.
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Possibly my favorite picture of my daughter of all time. Such unbridled joy. That bird-loving instinct runs strong in my family.
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The campanile, or bell tower. Another famous sight in Venice. Seph is launched back in time from the observation room at the top.
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This is what Tom and Seph see from the top of the campanile.
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Some of Venice's famous gondolas.
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Gibraltar from the sea. Own a piece of the rock.
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Pictures from Seducing Mr. Darcy
The Cathedral of Learning. The tallest building associated with higher education in the Western Hemisphere. A glorious forty-two stories,
looming over the University of Pittsburgh campus in the Oakland neighborhood in Pittsburgh. Dedicated in 1937.
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Remind you of anything? No wonder Flip likes it.
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The Temple of Apollo at Stourhead Garden in England. This is where Flip and Mr. Darcy share their brief fling. I've never been, but needed a folly for Flip and Darcy's impetuous act, and this one seemed perfect.
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A view of the Apollo Temple from the estate road. Rather a squatter version of the Cathedral of Learning. Are we noticing a theme here?
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A first edition Pride and Prejudice at the Newberry Library in Chicago. I'm not sure taking pictures was technically allowed.
I certainly didn't want to ask in case the answer was no. A fantastic place where anyone is allowed to get up close and personal with all sorts
of wonderful editions. My husband and I must have looked suspicious, though, for the person staffing the desk in the special edition room
never took his eyes off us. My husband had to stand between him and me in order for me to get the picture you see here. The librarians deliver
the book to you on a special padded holder so you don't have to break the spine in order to look through the volume. Awe-inspiring place.
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The last photograph of an ivory bill, Singer Tract Forest, Louisiana 1935. For a great read about an exciting and worthy adventure, read The Grail Bird:
The Rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker by Tim Gallagher. A page turner.
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Sox: the real reason for the extinction of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.
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An illustration of the now-extinct passenger pigeon.
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A house on Mt. Washington which overlooks downtown Pittsburgh from atop a mountain ridge. Flip lives on the top floor.
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The Victoria Crowned Pigeon. My absolute favorite bird of all time. This is the bird that serves as a matchmaker for Magnus and Flip. Regal, astounding, gorgeous blue and maroon. And the feathered crown! To die for! This one
lives in the National Aviary, one of my favorite places in Pittsburgh. And, by the way, there really was a tufted titmouse that lived there named Ninja, who was a wonderful little bird and very people friendly. One of my favorite illegal things to do at the Aviary used to be to put my finger between the stretched strands of nylon that keep the birds from the leaving the exhibits and let Ninja land on it. He liked to peck at my knuckle. My husband had to stand between me and the nice folks at the Aviary who were on the lookout for rule breakers like me. It's a good thing my husband is both accommodating and large. I think I was a bird in a former life. Sadly, Ninja went to bird heaven recently. He will be missed.
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No "KNEELING" here, but this was a photo from at the end of a fantastic game in which all eight Triple Word Score squares
had been used. Scrabble is big in my family. My sisters-in-law are cut-throat competitors.
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This is one of those amazing things that happen when you're writing. I knew Magnus was going to be wearing bright green socks and I knew
they'd be from Ted Baker since Magnus is British and my former British boss wore a lot of stylish Ted Baker clothes. What I didn't know
is whether Ted Baker actually sold bright green socks. On a trip to San Francisco in 2007 I ran across a Ted Baker store totally by accident
(there are only a few in the U.S.) When I walked it, what did I immediately spot in a basket next to the register? You got it; a pair of bright
green Ted Baker socks. And the kicker? The Ted Baker shopping bag these were loaded into was black with an extraordinarily bright green
interior.
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The ground floor of the Cathedral of Learning. Flip goes through here to get to Magnus's office on the 30th floor. She also spots him here toward the end of the book.
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The gorgeous stylized windows in Magnus's office. Why does it strike me as funny the offices that enjoy these windows here really belong to the
Finance folks at the university?
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The tiny balcony off Magnus's office. This really is a working balcony, though it's only big enough for about two people. The doors to all the
balconies in the Cathedral, large and small, are locked for safety reasons. We, however, were on a special guided tour given to us by Phil Heiber,
Director of Facilities at the University of Pittsburgh, and so got to enjoy them all, from top to bottom.
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This is the view from one of the Cathedral's balconies. The large building to the right is the University of Pittsburgh Library, where much of the early action
of Seducing Mr. Darcy is set. The two round black objects with white spots on top in the foreground are
refreshment-ordering booths at the outdoor café. You can see the tables and chairs to their right. The large rectangular building
behind the library is Posvar Hall. This used to be the site of Forbes Field, where the Pittsburgh Pirates played until 1970. A portion of
the center and right field walls still stand outside Posvar Hall and home plate is in the building, preserved under plexiglass. A very
famous photo of Pirate fans watching the 1960 World Series in Forbes Field from a larger balcony off the Cathedral of Learning appeared in Life Magazine.
Here's a link to the photo.
And here's a link to the story behind the photo.
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My husband and Phil Heiber, our awesome Cathedral of Learning tour guide.
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The peregrine falcon nest off the 41st floor of the Cathedral of Learning. The falcon pair only nests there in the spring. We visited in
September, so the nest had been long empty. During the spring, no one is allowed to go outside. The falcons are quite protective and will
attack. Heiber told a funny story about contractors hired to sandblast the exterior of the Cathedral poo-pooing any worries about the
falcons--that is, until the first time they were dive-bombed. After that, caution ruled. Here's a link to the webcam that follows the
nesting falcons in the
spring.
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A warning sign near the door to the balcony on the 41st floor where the nest is.
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A massage table with the 'port hole' window for your face.
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As David Byrne likes to say, watch out, you might get what you're after.
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An example of a "Rare Book Room". This is actually the special collections room at the Newberry Library in Chicago.
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This is the Monongahela Incline, one of Pittsburgh's two remaining inclines (known elsewhere as funiculars.) It's actually not the nicer of the two. The nicer one is the Duquesne Incline. Nicer is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but the Duquesne Incline car seats passengers on a single level, which means each of them has an incredible view (the view from Mt. Washington, where both the inclines reach their upper terminus, was voted the second best view in the USA by USA Weekend magazine and the incline itself was voted the third romantic place by Microsoft Network.) However, the Monogahela Incline is only a hundred feet or so from the house where I imagine Flip lives, so that's the one she takes on that last fateful trip to the top of Mt. Washington in Seducing Mr. Darcy.
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View of top seat in incline.
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View down from top seats in incline car.
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Pittsburgh from the window of the Monongahela Incline.
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The Monongahela Incline.
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Pictures from Flirting with Forever
Stairs at the Carnegie Museum of Art. They're twice as deep as a regular step, which makes running down them extremely awkward--worse if you have mustard on your shoe.
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The fountain at the entrance to the Carnegie, where Cam imagines Anastasia having her moment of divine rapture.
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The cover of the exhibit catalog showing the Peter Lely portrait with which Cam and Jeanne are entranced. I can see why. Like Cam doing her Lely research, I dropped a bundle on this book. I had to buy it at abe.com since it's out of print.
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This St. Paul's Covent Garden, where Peter goes to visit Ursula. It's also where Peter Lely is buried. He died at his easel, painting the duchess of Somerset. St. Paul's also happens to be the church where Gwen Stefani married Gavin Rossdale in 2002.
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This is one of the paintings from which Cam extrapolates her version of Peter's life with Ursula.
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The painting that caused such a commotion. Read this from the London Times as they report that even now, three hundred years later, experts can't agree on who the woman in the painting is.
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This is the Duchess of Portsmouth. Nell calls her a cockeye. I think she might be exaggerating a bit.
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What qualities must a painter possess to get his subject to pose like this? That's the question I asked myself, and the one I had Cam ask herself.
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This is a self-portrait of Peter Lely. He didn't paint very many self-portraits. In the book, Cam first grows interested in Peter when she sees this self-portrait. I'm not a big fan of mustaches, so I used my authorial power and ignored that part, but I love the rest of it. He really does look like a man who's lived through some unhappiness. I hope Peter enjoys the journey I've taken him on. I'd like to think it's one he would have picked for himself.
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This is the building Cam lives in in Mt. Lebanon. It used to be called the Cyclops Building and many of the floors served as the headquarters to Cyclops Steel Corp. Now it is the more anonymous "650 Washington Road," a significant decline if you ask me. It's the tallest building in Mt. Lebanon counting floors--I'm sure many church spires are taller--and it always struck me as odd that someone would build such a relatively tall building in a suburb. It has a magnificent view of the South Hills, which is why I put Cam in a loft at the top, though it really isn't a residential building at all. I would love to see a restaurant or bar at the top so that everyone could enjoy the view. When I was a kid my orthodontist was on the second floor of this building.
I took the picture from the top of the Mt. Lebanon parking garage. In the book, Cam and Jacket are standing on the top of garage when Jacket asks her to marry him.
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This is Aldo Coffee in Mt. Lebanon. It is directly across the street from the Cyclops Building. Once he's smitten with Cam, poor Peter plants himself here every day to watch her come home from work. And while he loves the coffee, I think he ultimately sets himself up for more pain than happiness there, for he ends up seeing Jacket greet Cam, hug her and lead her upstairs. Rough for a hero who's falling in love again for the first time in over 300 years...
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This is Peter's view, looking out the window. You can see the Cyclops Building across the street.
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This is another building on Washington Road in Mt. Lebanon. Tt's the building where Peter takes lodging when he decides he'll stay in Cam's time until he changes her mind about writing his fictography. It's a building with a very interesting history, but what I love about it is the fact it looks like a castle. I figured if Peter were going to live anywhere, it would have to be in a building that almost looks as if could have been build in 1673. The building was designed in 1928 or so to be a theatre. That's why it has a marquee in the front. But before it was finished, the stock market crash of 1929 happened and the man who was building it lost all his money. It was never finished as a theatre. Instead it became an insurance company for William Hall Insurance. There are apartments on the second floor, though. For many years, until this year, actually, the first floor housed a very upscale wedding dress shop called Anne Gregory for the Bride. This building and the bridal shop was used as a location in a really romantic movie called, The Bread, My Sweet (though the title was changed to A Wedding for Bella when it went to DVD), another good reason for Peter to make it his home.
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Here's a picture of the door to the apartments upstairs. It's to the left of the bridal shop entrance as you're facing the building. Those are the original light fixtures. They're gorgeous, and I love the rosettes above the door:
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There's a lot of art in Flirting with Forever--Peter's, Van Dyck's and a trio of other painters that help set up parallels to Peter's own relationship. This is a painting done by Alex Katz of his beloved Ada. While Katz has painted other subjects, he has come back time after time to his favorite subject, Ada, his wife of many decades. I love that you can see how much he loves her, even with wrinkles and gray hair. He always paints her through a lens of deep affection.
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This is another painting that has significance in the book. In 1986, Andrew Wyeth revealed his Helga collection--247 works of a woman named Helga who was his neighbor and helper. He painted and drew her over and over, naked and dressed, without the knowledge (Wyeth says) of Wyeth's wife or Helga's husband, over a period of 14 years. It was the first time such a massive collection, done around a single subject, had been revealed as a whole, and rather shocked the art world. He sold the collection to a single buyer for a massive amount of money, but I find his whole fascination with this woman very interesting.
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This is a painting by French painter, Pierre Bonnard. He had a very turbulent relationship with his wife/muse, Marte. Like Wyeth and Katz, he painted his favorite subject over and over, but Bonnard was a little different. He always painted Marte at the same age, when they first fell in love. Even as she got older, he painted her as a young woman, often in her bath, and it continued that way even after she died. He always saw her the same way.
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